Follow Us

I started studying with Mr. Totenberg when I was 14. My previous teacher, the esteemed Zinaida Gilels, had just passed away and insisted prior to her death that I continue my studies “only with Roman Totenberg.” When I arrived for my first lesson and rang the bell, Mr. Totenberg answered the door himself. He was impeccably dressed, wearing a suit and pocket square, had a soft understated smile, and a confident but not overbearing presence. He spoke to me in Russian though I learned he also knew Polish, English, German, French, and Italian. His studio was covered with autographed photos from the Roosevelts, famous musicians, and other prominent people. His noisy little bird observed our first meeting from a cage on the corner ...

Destabilize a triad with an augmented fourth in the bass, and you're ready to tell one hell of a story. As a composer, that's what I think of when I think of Marc Blitzstein. That, and the tightly-woven web of friendship and talent that made up the generation of serious composers still most-revered by American concert music audiences.

# # #

One rainy November 1980 day Karlos Moser, then head of the opera program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I was an undergraduate music major, and I were working through some songs that I had contributed to a review he was concocting. Karlos had cast my older brother Kevin as Ben Hubbard in his production of Blitzstein's Regina during the late 70s. It had been my introduction ...

Late on a November 2011 night in Chicago, I leaned back in my chair and looked out over Lake Michigan from my aerie at the Renaissance after having had drinks with three of my former Chicago pupils. All stand-up, ambitious, talented chaps who've banded together to found the Chicago Composer's Orchestra. Earlier that day, I attended a performance of New York Storiesat the conservatory featuring the Chicago Opera Theater young artists who would play the larger roles in their production the next year of Amelia.

Walter Isaacson's just-published Steve Jobs biography slipped from my hand to the floor as I nodded off. Leaning forward to pick it up and set it on the side table, I opened at random to the page describing how Jobs as a ...

Maybe it is because I’m more or less at the mid-point of a Brahms cycle with the Surrey Mozart players, but right now, I feel like I’m orbiting planet Brahms. 2012 is looking like a Brahms year for Ken, and I like that a lot.

I’ve been accumulating some morsels of Brahmsian prejudice that I’ve wanted to share here.

1-    I really don’t like the Schoenberg arrangement of the opus 25 no. 1 Piano Quartet. I like Schoenberg. I like the G minor Piano Quartet. I like Schoenberg’s arrangements of the Emperor Waltz and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, but I’ve never warmed to what Schoenberg reputedly called Brahms’s Symphony no. 5. I heard it again on the radio last week, ...

A conversation with a fellow collaborative pianist the other day got me thinking how I ended being a collaborative pianist for a living.

I believe my first accompanying experience was in third grade, when I made a cassette tape recording of the ’80s hit, “That’s What Friends Are For,” with my classmate’s mom. For real.

When my younger sister began violin lessons, I was her pianist for recitals and competitions.

In middle school, I was the accompanist for the Chorale, an auditioned, all-girls ensemble.

In high school I was the accompanist for the studio of a local violin teacher — my first paying gig! I also studied chamber music at Juilliard and Aspen.

In college I accompanied weekly ...

"Disney," wrote Donald Oliver, "is prepared to pay a "Media Buy-out" to the copyists who worked on The Lion King.  This Buy-out covers new use for media not in existence when the original League/Union contract was negotiated, like internet, ring tones, mobile apps, etc. It's a flat fee which was newly negotiated by the League and the Union ... you're due $292.50 which can buy a fair amount of chicken-feed ... or Pampers."

"Mouse Money," I mused, reading the E-mail while leaning over the laptop in the kitchen, waiting for my espresso machine to sputter to a stop. I recalled the summer of 1992: I needed money. I had promised myself to confine my pianism to collaborative recitals; consequently, pit work, rehearsals, vocal ...

Jherek Bischoff and the Wordless Music Orchestra open the 2012 Ecstatic Music Festival

This year’s edition of Ecstatic Music Festival just started and even if it won’t feature Judd Greenstein’s—it’s curator—dream lineup, it’s still pretty awesome. Indeed 150 performers and composers will collaborate on 11 shows to give us a vivid snapshot of the indie, or post-classical scene: Sxip Shirey, Angélica Negrón, Nick Zammuto,  Jason Treuting,  Janus Trio, Daisy Press, the Calder Quartet, Grey McMurray, Oneida, Rhys Chatham, and The Mountain Goats to name a few.

The festival (running through March 28) opened with an evening dedicated to Jherek Bischoff’s music: his ...